[ExI] not that rare earth (part 2 of at least 2)

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
…

 

Last quarter had the highest ever percentage of EV registrations in CA at 29%.

 

Stories of the EV "slump" are much exaggerated.

 

Rafal

 

 

 

 

Rafal, note the EV registrations vs EV sales, two different things.  That registrations are 29% sounds right, as it seems like about a third of the cars around here are EVs.

 

Regarding sales, some things changed in the past 6 years.  California voters approved a measure to require the power company to buy a third of its power from renewable sources.  The power company told us this was too much, because the renewables it has access to are intermittent.  To make the reliability specification, it would be buying power it couldn’t sell because the demand was too low at the time the power was available.  The power company told us the measure would run up the price of power.  The politicians told us it was all good, no worries, it will all be OK, green, renewable power, etc.

 

Well whaddya know, the evil old capitalist power company was telling the truth and the politicians were lying.  Or if not lying, they didn’t understand the wildly complicated engineering task of delivering electric power to the faceless masses while meeting the reliability specifications.  Intermittent power sources are great if you can use the power at the time, and if you have enough baseline generation capacity to cover all power demands with the requisite reliability when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

 

Moral of the story: the price of power was 22 cents when the measure passed, and now it is 41 cents.  I never even notice my power bill before, but I damn sure notice it now.  I don’t have an electric car.

 

The tax incentive for EVs expired, and the EV driver no longer gets to use the carpool lane.  Without those incentives, the fraction of car sales is now way down from what was forecast by now.

 

spike

 

 

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